The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 2: 1798-1803 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2011-08-15 rce337 letterEEd.26.328 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, p. 167 [in part; verses not reproduced].

These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer

For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.

A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.

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 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming after latest corrections Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Averill Buchanan Part II added
328. Robert Southey to John May, 15 June 1798 Address: To/ John May Esqr / Hales/ near Downton/ Wiltshire/ SingleStamped: BATHEndorsement: 1798 No. 20/ Robert Southey/ Bath 15 June/ recd: 20 do/ ansd: 7 July MS: Berg Collection, New York Public LibraryPreviously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, p. 167 [in part; verses not reproduced]. Friday. 15 June. 98.
Bath.
My dear friend

I had hoped to have given you an account of our settling by this time; but we are still on the hunt. I arrived safe, & found both my Mother & Edith better (I think) than at my departure. the auction was over, & had not been an unfavourable one; it has just produced enough to clear all the debts here, & furniture enough is reserved for the new & smaller habitation of which we are in search.

I will send you Charles Lambs last poem. it may belike fill the sheet, but the sheet could not be better filled. I reviewed his & Lloyds poemsSouthey’s review of Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd, Blank Verse (1798), was published in the Critical Review, 24 (October 1798), 232–234. on Wednesday.

Living without God in the WorldPublished in Southey’s Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1799), pp. 90–92.

–––––

Mystery of God! thou brave & beauteous world, Made fair with light & shade & stars & flowers, Made fearful & august with woods & rocks, Jaggd precipice, black mountain, sea in storms, Sun over all, that no corival owns, But thro Heavens pavement rides, as in despite Or mockery of the littleness of man, – I see a mighty arm, by Man unseen, Resistless, not to be controuled, that guides In solitude of unshared energies, All these thy ceaseless miracles, o world! Arm of the world, I view thee, & I muse On man, who trusting in his mortal strength, Leans on a shadowy staff, a staff of dreams. We consecrate our total hopes & fears To idols, flesh & blood, our love (heavens due) Our praise & admiration: praise bestowed By man on man, & acts of worship done To a kindred nature, certes do reflect Some portion of the glory & rays oblique Upon the politic worshipper, – so man Extracts a pride from his humility. Some braver spirits of the modern stamp Affect a Godhead nearer: these talk loud Of mind & independant intellect, Of energies omnipotent in man, And man of his own fate artificer; Yea of his own life lord, & of the days Of his abode on earth, when time shall be That life immortal shall become an art, Or Death by chemic practices deceived Forego the scent, which for six thousand years Like a good hound he has followed, or at length More manners learning, & a decent sense And reverence of a philosophic world, Relent, & leave to prey on carcasses. But these are fancies of a few. the rest, Atheists, or Deists only in the name, By word or deed deny a God. they eat Their daily bread, & draw the breath of heaven Without or thought or thanks. heavens roof to them Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps, No more, that light them to their purposes. They “wander loose about,”Thomas Day (1748–89; DNB), ‘The History of Little Jack’, in The Children’s Miscellany (London, 1788), p. 57. they nothing see Themselves except, & creatures like themselves, Short-livd, short-sighted, impotent to save. So on their dissolute spirits, soon or late, Destruction cometh “like an armed man,” Proverbs 24: 34. Or like a dream of murder in the night, Withering their mortal faculties, & breaking The bones of all their pride.

You will, I think, like this poem. it is quite in Lambs peculiar stile.

We are broiling in this city of freestone. I envy you the river Avon. this evening we are to see a house in the neighbourhood in a very beautiful situation. Tom is with us. direct here till I can inform you of a new abode.

God bless you. yrs truly Robert Southey.